


Trip Into My Heart

by alnima



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Minor Zayn Malik/Harry Styles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alnima/pseuds/alnima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall doesn't know how to function properly when he's around Louis. And Louis can't help but be smitten by it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trip Into My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't know or own anyone. This work is my own and it is not featured on any other site, nor does anyone have my permission to repost it in its entirety. Thank you!!!

Louis is sitting in the middle of the cafeteria, listening to Harry drone on about the date he had with Zayn the night before. Louis has no idea what he’s saying, the low drawl of Harry’s voice causing his mind to drift as he shoves his sandwich into his mouth to take a bite. It’s an average sandwich, a bit dry with too little of the school’s mystery sauce and he has to take a sip of his coke between every bite to help it go down his throat because swallowing it is so difficult, but it’s good enough to satisfy the hollow feeling in his stomach from having skipped breakfast. 

He’s nodding his head to Harry’s story, muttering a ‘yeah’ and ‘oh really’ every few minutes to let Harry know that he’s paying attention, even though he’s not. He’s scanning the cafeteria, watching as the student body all settles in for their own lunch. He can see Liam on the other side of the cafeteria with a brunette girl with long, curly hair, Louis can’t remember her name, only having met her when he was drunk. He can see the rest of his friends, Stan, Oliver, and Nick as well. He can even see Zayn, standing in front of one of the vending machines; Harry would kill him if he knew that Zayn was eating from one of those instead of getting a meal that involved a plate and being able to sit down. Louis knows that Harry hasn’t spotted him yet because he’s still rattling on about whatever he’s talking about instead of shouting across the cafeteria for his boyfriend to come join them. 

Louis swallows the bit of food into his mouth and immediately takes another bite of his sandwich, humming happily as it enters his mouth. He’s barely noticed that Harry has stopped talking until…

“Who is that?” Louis hears Harry ask, he glances up from his sandwich and follows his best friend’s gaze where a boy is standing, leaning against one of the tables, staring at Harry and Louis. His hair is blond, bleached with tufts of dark brown along his roots, Louis can see, even from the fairly large distance between the two of them, that the boy has bright blue eyes, brighter than his own. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants with a drop crotch and a shirt with no sleeves that shows off his ribcage. 

“I don’t know,” Louis says, swallowing a mouthful of food. “You know him?”

“No,” Harry says, slow and hesitant as he watches the boy. “I think he knows us.”

The boy nods in their direction, waving as he pushes off of the table. Louis watches him, trying to hide the fact that he’s checking the boy out by taking a large bite of his meal. 

He’s half way towards them when he trips over one of the trashcans, almost falling inside, he dodges it though, managing to maneuver his body away from the trashcan but it’s the same moment that he trips over his own feet and drops to the ground.

Louis stares at him, mouth open with a piece of lettuce falling out of it as he watches the blond push up off the floor, brushing off his knees before he makes his way out of the cafeteria. 

~~~~ 

It’s a few days after the incident that Louis sees the boy again, he’s sitting in one of his classes, Ancient Roman Studies. It’s one of the ones that he was forced into taking when his advisor thought it would be fun for his elective credits. Louis doesn’t remember electing to take the class but it’s whatever, there isn’t any homework and the teacher allows for open notes on exams, probably because he knows that nobody would ever study for any of this. 

It’s halfway through the lesson when the blond boy comes barreling through the door; his arms are full of papers, the textbook, and a notebook. He’s got a snapback on backwards and he immediately begins shouting apologies as he rushes past the teacher, waving an arm behind him as he makes his way up the stairs, trying to find a seat. Louis watches him closely, hearing as the teacher sighs from the interruption, the boy is almost to the top when he catches sight of Louis. He looks surprised for a moment before he’s tripping on a stair, his papers going everywhere as he topples to the ground. Louis winces as he falls and sees the boy has an open book bag on his back, contents spilling out of it as well. 

“Sorry, sorry,” the boys shouts, standing up and grabbing all of his papers that flew everywhere, most of them landing on a girl sitting along the aisle. 

“Please take your seat,” the professor says, folding his arms over his chest as he begins the lesson again. The boy nods his head and begins making his way down one of the rows, muttering apologies to everyone as he walks, glancing up at Louis with every few steps. Louis has to cover his mouth to keep from laughing as he watches the boy trying to get to a seat. 

When he finally sits down he throws his bag on the floor and begins flipping through his papers, pulling a pen out from behind his ear and rapidly writing down the notes on the board. 

Louis spends the rest of class watching the blond klutz, his notes left unattended, until the teacher dismisses them all a short twenty minutes later. 

~~~~ 

“Do you remember that kid in the cafeteria two days ago that tripped over the trashcan and landed on the floor?” Louis asks Harry, dropping his book bag on the floor of their dorm room. 

Harry’s lying on his stomach, on Louis’ bed, scrolling through a random website on his laptop. He rolls over to look at Louis, scrunching up his face as he thinks. “Oh yeah, I do.”

“He’s in my Ancient Roman Studies course and first, he came in late with his book bag open and papers falling out of it as he walked. Then, as he’s walking up the steps trying to get a seat, he manages to trip and toss his notebook and book onto a girl in the aisle seat. The only seats open were in the very middle of the row, right, so he had to shimmy his way through the little aisle to get a chair, stepping on people as he walked and talking over the teacher so he could say sorry. I thought our professor was going to kill him. I never even knew he was in that class but now that I do I’ll never be able to stop watching him,” Louis says, laughing as he remembers what happened to the boy in class. 

“Because he’s cute?” Harry asks, sitting up on Louis’ bed. 

Louis stops laughing, almost choking on air as he looks at Harry incredulously. “What?”

“Is that why you can’t stop looking at him? Because he’s cute?”

“No,” Louis practically shouts, reaching out and smacking Harry’s foot. “I won’t be able to stop looking at him because he’s a klutz and falls over anything that’s stationary. It’s golden. I could always use a laugh during class.”

Harry looks at him for a moment and Louis glares back, because so what if the doofus is cute, that doesn’t change the face that Louis loves watching him and loves watching as the kid makes a giant fool out of himself. 

“He was pretty cute though,” Harry says eventually. 

“I didn’t notice,” Louis lies, pretending to examine some dirt under his nail. 

~~~~ 

Louis finds himself rattling off the story of the cafeteria and classroom fiasco when he sees Zayn a few hours later. He’s sprawled out on his bed, chatting away animatedly at Zayn who is sat on Harry’s bed, nodding his head, and laughing in all the right places. 

“I mean, I thought that Harry was horrible when it came to keeping balance and not running into things but this kid takes the cake,” Louis says, laughing lightly and sitting up so he can see Zayn better. 

“Yeah sounds like it,” Zayn says, rubbing his chin and looking thoughtful. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Zayn says, shaking his head and looking up at Louis. 

Louis squints his eyes at him, wondering why Zayn is looking thoughtful now, not like it isn’t a common occurrence, because Zayn always looks deep in thought when he’s not looking at Harry but now it’s annoying Louis because he just got done telling Zayn what is probably the funniest story of the week and he’s staring out the window instead of laughing with Louis. 

“The boy is cute, too,” Harry says, coming back into the bedroom area of their dorm with a bowl full of chips and another full of candy. It’s supposed to be Zayn and Harry’s movie date, something they do every few weeks when they don’t want to study. It’s nearly break anyway and Louis can’t blame them for wanting to spend the evening in. 

Zayn shifts his gaze towards Harry, smiling when he sees him. 

“He’s all right,” Louis says, snatching the candy bowl from Harry. “It’s mostly funny how his feet don’t know how to stay planted on the ground.” 

He’s sucking the chocolate off an M&M when he glances up and sees Zayn giving Harry a look; Harry’s head tilted to the side as he tries to figure out whatever Zayn is trying to tell him with his eyes. 

“I’m leaving,” Louis shouts, pushing the candy bowl into Harry’s lap. “I’m going to Nick’s, I don’t need to be here and watch the two of you make heart eyes at each other when Nick has alcohol and shitty music.”

“Have fun,” Harry shouts at Louis’ back. 

Louis slams the door closed behind him as he leaves, at least he knows that Nick will appreciate his story. 

~~~~ 

Louis sees the blonde everywhere after that. Almost every time he’s in the cafeteria, twice a week in his Ancient Roman Studies class, at the coffee shop across campus when he could use a morning pick me up. 

He’s everywhere. 

And everywhere that he pops up is another place that he manages to make a complete fool out of himself when he spots Louis. 

Louis is currently in the library, trying to study for his chemistry exam that’s coming up, he has no idea what’s been going on in the class since he’s missed the last three of them but it’s fine, he’ll study until he’s blue in the face and looking like a glorified zombie and then he’ll pass with an average grade that will maintain his GPA. It’s what he does. It’s fine. It’s the last exam before break and he’ll be fine. 

What’s not fine is his lanky, brunette best friend dropping down on the table in front of him, poking him in the cheek as he sits. “Louis, I have someone I want you to meet,” he whispers, lowering his voice so no one that’s far away can hear, but loud enough to cause a girl to turn around and shush them. Harry smiles at her, giggling a sorry into his hand. The girl rolls her eyes, turning around in her seat to get back to her own studies. 

“Haz, I’m busy,” Louis says, capping his highlighter and looking up at Harry. 

“I know, I know, but this is Niall,” Harry says, and Louis finally casts his gaze over towards Harry’s right and sees the boy from the cafeteria and his Ancient Roman Studies class. “He’s Zayn’s roommate, isn’t that great? That’s so great.”

“Hiya,” Niall says, smiling widely at Louis. Louis smiles back, tilting his head up at Niall; he’s really not in the mood to socialize with the boy who keeps randomly popping up everywhere. The boy who also looks insanely cute every time he pops up and makes a complete fool out of himself. Louis has spent the last few weeks after Niall’s antics in class telling everyone he knows about it. It’s not his fault that he can’t stop talking about Niall. It’s Niall’s. And it’s also Niall’s fault that Louis has seen him everyday for two weeks. 

“Nice to finally meet you,” Niall says, loud and chipper. Several people turn around and making shushing noises at him but it only causes him to laugh, a deep laugh that rattles his stomach and causes tingles in Louis’ skin and a smile to spread across his face and that’s—it’s cold in the library and that’s the only reason this is happen, Louis reasons. 

“Same to you,” Louis says. “And I didn’t know that Zayn had a roommate.”

“Course he does, we’ve been living together since we first came to uni. He’s too much of a coward to live on his own, loves being alone, but hates living alone. Besides he always has me leave before Harry comes over, which is great because I’ve got a lot more to do on a Friday then watch those two make heart eyes at each other,” Niall says, poking Harry in the dimple. 

Harry smiles, blushing from Niall talking about him and Zayn. “Louis loves to spend time with me and Zayn. You should join us. We like to kick the ball around on Wednesday’s after class, you should come, right Louis? Don’t you think that Niall should come? It’d be great to have an equal number of players.”

“It’d be five if he came, Haz, and that’s not equal,” Louis says, laughing at the end of his statement because it’s always been Louis, Harry, Zayn and Liam every Wednesday for the past semester. 

“Oh well, I don’t have to come,” Niall says, shrugging his shoulders as he looks at everything but Louis. “Loads to do.”

“No, no,” Harry says, reaching out and tugging on Niall’s arm like he’s afraid that he’ll run off. “I’ll sit out. I’m horrible, always falling over and missing my kicks on the ball and kicking air. You can take my place.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Niall says. 

Harry turns to glare at Louis, his expression reading ‘fix this’. Louis sighs; dropping the highlighter he’s been playing with the last five minutes down onto his textbook. “You’d be doing us all a favor,” Louis says. “Honestly, Harry is horrible.”

“All right if you insist,” Niall says, his expression turning sunny again. “I love any sport that has a ball in it. I’ve got a bum knee but I can play around for a while before it gets too bad. Harry can be my sub.”

“That’s so perfect,” Harry says, smiling at Louis and Niall. “Okay, well, since that is settled we can leave you alone to study.” He jumps off the desk, patting Louis on the head as he struts away from them. 

Niall lingers for a moment, blue eyes boring into Louis, before he turns and walks off. Louis watches him go, witnessing the moment when Niall bumps into a bookshelf, knocking over several books, cursing as they fall together and muttering loud apologies to the entire library that erupts into hushing noises almost instantly. 

~~~~ 

Niall shows up on Wednesday wearing a jersey and a pair of cut off sweatpants, he’s carrying a red ball under his arm, sunglasses perched on his face as he walks across the field. 

“Hey,” Niall says, stopping in front of the group. “I’m Niall,” he says, holding out his fist for Liam. 

Liam taps it, smiling up at him. “Liam,” he says, tightening the laces on his shoes. 

Louis takes a sip out of his water bottle, watching as Niall interacts with his group of friends, the way he seamlessly fits in while also taking the time to appreciate the way Niall looks in his outfit. It’s the first time that he’s ever seen him in a pair of shorts, his legs are tiny, completely straight and narrow and Louis is a bit enamored with the smallness of Niall’s body. 

Louis doesn’t realize that Niall is watching him until his eyes trail up to Niall’s face and sees the faint flush of red spreading across his cheeks are he looks at Louis, small smile playing across his lips. 

“Well,” Louis says, coughing lightly. “Are we going to start?”

“Course,” Liam says, jumping up and rushing out to the middle of the field. 

Louis shrugs out of his jacket as Zayn bends down to kiss Harry before going to join Liam. “We’ll use your ball, yeah?” Louis says, motioning towards the one in Niall’s hand. 

“Course,” Niall says. “Need to do my stretches first, but you three can start. I’ll be out in a minute.” 

Louis nods his head, walking past Niall and making his way towards the field; he doesn’t realize that he forgot to grab the ball until Niall shouts his name. He turns around and watches, as Niall is swings the ball behind his head and goes to throw it towards Louis. He lets go of the ball when his arms swing over the top of his head, making contact with the ground before bouncing back and smacking Niall in the face. 

Louis freezes, mouth-hanging open as he stares at Niall. He’s not sure if he should laugh or not, not knowing if Niall is hurt or not. It’s a beat before Niall begins cackling, throwing his head back in laughter as he falls to the ground. Harry is sitting on the ground next to him, looking at Niall with a worried expression, one that Louis knows is probably mirrored on his own face as he watches the blond roll around in laughter. 

Louis races forward, sliding to a stop when he reaches Niall and crouches down on the ground next to him, trying to see if Niall is all right, making sure that his nose isn’t bleeding and his glasses didn’t break and hurt one of his eyes. Niall’s still laughing and Louis turns around to glance at Harry, unsure about what to do. 

“Just hit me in the face,” Niall says, wheezing from laughter, clutching his stomach as he pulls off his sunglasses. “It broke my glasses.”

“Are you okay?” Louis asks, not sure if he’s asking about injuries or Niall’s state of mind. 

Niall nods his head, wiping at his cheeks as tears from laughter are rolling down his cheeks. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Let’s play, yeah?”

“Um, yeah. Of course,” Louis says, standing up and helping Niall to his feet. 

Niall brushes himself off before he races towards the middle of the field, dribbling the ball as he heads towards Zayn and Liam. 

~~~~ 

Niall seems to take that day in the park as an invitation to tag along everywhere Louis and his friends go. Louis is fine with it, perfectly accepting of being able to see Niall make a fool out of himself on and off campus. 

It’s three days after the incident in the park where Niall hit himself in the nose with the ball; they’re behind one of the shopping centers, Zayn and Louis wanting to go out for a little while on their skateboards. It’s not the best place to skate, but the workers pretend like they don’t see them when they come out back to smoke their cigarettes and Louis, Zayn and Harry pretend not to notice when they’re shoving boxes of food into their cars that they didn’t pay for. 

They’re taking a break, drinking some of the water that Harry forced them to bring, talking about how they want to try and do a jump off the stairs on the other side when Harry starts bouncing around on the ground excitedly. He’s smiling widely, waving his arm around excitedly at something behind Louis. “What’s the matter?” Louis asks, turning around to see what has Harry’s attention. 

“It’s Niall,” Harry shouts. “Hi, Niall.”

Niall waves back with his free hand, the other carefully holding a skateboard that Louis thinks he’s seen before. 

“I didn’t know that he skateboarded,” Louis says, watching Niall carefully as he approaches, trying not to admire the line of his collarbones, the little fluff of chest hair peeking out through his low cut top, another sleeveless with the ribs hanging out on the sides. He looks ridiculous and Louis is annoyed with himself for thinking it’s cute. 

“He doesn’t,” Zayn says, smirking. “That’s one of my old boards from the back of my closet. No idea what he’s doing out here.”

“Hmm,” Louis says, wondering why Niall would want to start skateboarding, a little voice in the back of his mind that sounds a lot like Harry, saying Louis is that reason. 

“Hey,” Niall says, smiling broadly at everyone. 

“What are you doing here?” Zayn asks. 

“To use my board,” Niall says, pulling his skateboard out and flashing it at them before he drops it down on the ground, putting one foot on it, winking at them. 

“My board,” Zayn corrects with a smile. 

Niall looks like he’s thinking for a moment, frowning before he shakes his head. “Nope, it’s definitely mine.”

“All right, enough talking. I came here to skate, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Louis says, not wanting to hear Niall babble on excitedly any longer about skateboarding, or anything really. His stomach is swirling around, most people would call it butterflies, but Louis thinks it’s from the pepperoni pizza he ate with Harry before coming here. 

“You’re right, let’s go,” Niall says, kicking under his board. It jumps into the air and Niall reaches out to grab it, casually and with ease, he gets a grip on the wood, his fingertips grazing the edge, before it falls back down on the ground. 

Niall’s arm is still suspended in midair, body hunched over slightly as he stares ahead of him at the board on the ground. Louis looks at him for a moment before bursting into laughter, his body shaking as it happens. Zayn soon follows, laughing and muttering under his breath as he bends down to pick up the skateboard, passing it over towards Niall. 

Niall accepts it, watching Louis with a smile on his face before he begins laughing as well. 

~~~~ 

“So where are we going?” Louis asks, picking up his pace, trying to keep up with Harry. 

“To see a movie,” Harry says, glancing down at his phone, looking back up, and squinting as he tries to find the street names. “We’re meeting Zayn and Niall too, I forgot to mention.”

Louis falters, tripping over his feet. “Forgot to mention?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, nodding his head and pocketing his phone. “This way.” He points north and picks up his pace. “Zayn and I were talking about wanting to see one this afternoon, Niall was home and he overheard us and asked if he could tag along. Might have mentioned how he’d like if it you were there.” 

“Is this a double date?” Louis asks. 

Harry turns to smile at him before he turns left, the theater directly in front of them. He holds the door open for Louis, pushing him inside when Louis tries to run away. 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to go out on a date with Niall, it’s just that…well, it’s just that he doesn’t want to have to finally admit to himself that maybe, maybe, he has a crush on Niall. 

Maybe. 

Harry drags him to the lobby, pulling on his wrist, leading him towards where Zayn and Niall are standing. Niall’s hair is blonder than it’s been before, less brown along his scalp. He’s wear teal colored pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up along his biceps. There is a top hat, a mustache and a bow tie on the center of his shirt. Louis wants to roll his eyes, because of course Niall would think that’s a date outfit. 

Louis keeps quiet when they reach Niall and Zayn, accepting the ticket that Zayn passes him before handing one to Harry. 

Harry reaches out, grabs a hold of Zayn and begins walking away. “We’re going to go, you two have fun.”

Louis swallows, watching them go until he and Niall are completely alone. 

“Um, I’m guessing that Harry told you this is kind of date?” Niall asks, brushing his fingers through his hair. 

“He did,” Louis says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

“Sorry I didn’t ask you myself, was worried that I might end up breaking a leg or something if I did.”

Louis laughs, scanning his eyes over Niall’s body. “It’s okay,” he says, admiring everything about Niall, his eyes scanning over Niall’s thighs when he sees that Niall’s fly is undone. 

“What?” Niall says, looking confused when Louis laughs. 

“Your pants are unzipped,” Louis says, biting his lips to not smile. 

“Shit,” Niall mutters, reaching down to zip up his fly. He’s blushing furiously when he looks back up at Louis, his face red, the blush creeping down his neck, probably spreading across his chest and back. 

“You’re a bit of an idiot,” Louis says, smiling at Niall. 

Niall sighs, shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah, I reckon so.”

He looks disappointed, like Louis has just kicked his puppy, or ruined a childhood dream. It annoys Louis infinitely that he still finds everything Niall does to be cute. 

Louis takes a step closer, pushing himself into Niall’s personal space and still smiling when Niall looks up at him, gulping. “Well,” Louis says, reaching out and brushing his finger along Niall’s chin. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m attracted to idiots.”

Niall’s face breaks out into a smile right before Louis leans in, closing the distance between the two of them, kissing Niall slowly. He moves his mouth against the blonds; soft pecks at first until they’re properly kissing. 

The swirling in Louis’ stomach is stronger than it’s ever been before, he can feel Niall smiling into the kiss, causing his own smile before he has to pull away. He’s still fighting a smile when he opens his eyes and sees how happy Niall is. He leans forward and kisses him once more on the lips, and then his cheek for good measure before he takes a step back. He takes a deep breath, telling himself that he can do this as Niall takes his hand and pulls him through the lobby towards the concession stand. 

They barely make it four feet before Niall trips.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my [tumblr](http://www.alnimawrites.tumblr.com) if you want to yell at me about this or anything :).


End file.
